The Shadow Kills the Growth
by LizBee
Summary: Six years after Holmes's death, his son receives an unexpected visit and embarks on a dangerous adventure in Paris. Now updated to fix formatting errors.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: The Shadow Kills the Growth  
**Author**: LizBee  
**Summary**: Holmes's death is the catalyst for a family reunion of sorts.  
**Rated**: PG-13  
**Warnings**: Ooh, character death, please! O-for-Offspring, legitimate and otherwise.  
**Fandom**: Mary Russell  
**Spoilers**: Eh, say all of 'em.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine. No profit. Now read on.  
**Notes**: This is actually the prologue to a longer fic, but as that fic is almost finished (needs a heavy edit and some plot-wrangling), I thought I'd post the first section now. It has its origins in an AIM conversation many months back, when my partner-in-crime Branwyn made a point that should have been obvious: The "lovely lost son" mentioned in MREG (if he were alive, and I see no evidence to the contrary) would be a brother to any child Holmes had with Russell (an unlikely event, true, but what else is fan fiction for?). I'm a sucker for stories about siblings, parents and emotional legacies, and so this story was born. Jonathan Holmes has made earlier appearances in my fics "Seasons" and "The Downstairs Tenant", and in Branwyn's fics "Personal History" and "Quality Time" (branwyn at mirrordance dot net). Title comes from the Jonson quote below.  
**Email**: elizabeth underscore barr at yahoo dot com dot au

**The Shadow Kills the Growth**  
by LizBee

"Greatness of name in the father oft-times overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another."  
Ben Jonson, _Timber_

_1933_

My father died in the early weeks of June, succumbing at last to the cancer that had been consuming him since I was six. It was pneumonia that finished him in the end. He had become uncharacteristically garrulous in the final weeks, but his strength gave out at last, and for days, it seemed that the only sound in the world was his laboured breathing.

My mother, it sometimes seemed, had hardly spoken for months. When she did, it was in a low voice, as if she lacked the strength to make herself heard. Some childish part of me was convinced that she, too, was going to die, but we never discussed it. She nursed my father, dealt with the doctor and took long, solitary walks across the Downs, from which she returned with tight lips and red eyes.

Most of my days were spent with my father, my tutors having been dismissed back in March. Outsiders were not presently welcome in our lives, and in any case, Father's lessons were more rewarding. When he had the strength, he told me about old cases, some of which were well-known, and some of which he was sharing for the first time. My mother was in and out of the room, smiling occasionally at some memory, but usually looking drawn and serious. One night, I fell asleep with my head on Father's shoulder, and woke to hear my parents arguing in low voices. She had a syringe in her hands, but he was refusing the injection.

"I suppose you'd rather have the pain," she was saying.

"Possession of my own mind." He had to pause for breath. "The pain is a small price."

She said, "The irony borders on the absurd, Holmes," but I heard her return the syringe to its box and place it in a drawer. Then her hands closed over my shoulders and she pulled me gently to my feet and led me to my own room. I waited by the door, listening to the creak of the bed in the guest room as she went to rest. Then I slipped back to my father's side. She found me there the next morning, but said nothing.

He died four days later, after lunch. That evening, when the doctor, the undertaker and the sundry invading strangers had left, Mother took me out to the cliffs, and we watched the waves below. We didn't speak, but her hand was reassuringly tight around mine.

The funeral, three days later, was attended by an eclectic group of friends, associates and even – I thought – a few old enemies, now toothless and stooped, inclined to stare at me and avoid my mother's eye. She ignored them politely, along with the newspapermen who congregated at the gates of the graveyard. But her jaw was clenched, and when they began to creep closer, she leaned over to my godfather and I heard her say, "For God's sake, Peter, send them away. I can't face them today."

He squeezed her arm and set off, his set jaw lending a certain gravitas to his otherwise foolish face. My mother's attention was consumed by my uncle, who seemed indecently robust compared with Father, and if either of them noticed me as I slipped away to follow Lord Peter, they said nothing.

He slowed when he saw me behind him, but his attention was on the journalist and photographer. In a civil tone he said, "Now really, gentlemen, have some thought for the feelings of the family."

"Got to think of the feelings of the public, too, my lord." The journalist offered Lord Peter a cheeky smile, which he did not return. "'It's with a heavy heart that I take up this pen', and all that."

He evidently considered this evidence of literacy. His photographer-colleague looked slightly embarrassed, but he also looked like he was mentally lining up a shot: _Aristocratic sleuth comforts great detective's son. _

"Leave," said Peter. "This is a cemetery, not a courthouse. Go and pump the locals for anecdotes if you must." He took a step forward, all charm and affability. "You'll get nothing from the people here."

The journalist stepped back. His colleague was already retreating.

"Good lads."

Lord Peter turned and met my gaze with a look of grim satisfaction, and squeezed my shoulder as we walked back. I wondered why he wasn't worried that the reporters would linger, but they left quickly, and we later heard that they'd spent the afternoon in Mrs Whiteneck's pub, pressing her for stories about my father and his family. In the end, remarkably little was published. I suspected my uncle's influence.

I found my mother in conversation with the Dowager Duchess of Beauville. I made my way through the crowd until I found the fifteen-year-old Duke himself. He was half-hidden behind an old-fashioned tombstone, hands in his pockets, watching the proceedings with a melancholy look. He greeted me with a vague wave and said, "Mother is trying to invite you down to Justice Hall for the rest of the summer."

"She won't leave," I said. I took a seat on a fifty-year-old grave. "She'll say she's busy here."

Gabe joined me. "Fair enough, I suppose, but it would have been nice to have you around for the summer. Lenore has a beau." He pulled a face. "Aunt Phyllida is frantic, and Uncle Sidney has decided this is the perfect time to tell me about being a man."

He paused so I could appreciate the full horror of this situation.

"I didn't like to tell him that I already know. He hasn't forgiven me for being expelled from Eton yet." He brooded and scuffed his shoe along the stone. "I'll miss your father," he said eventually. "He was sensible, at least."

"Yes," I said. "I know."

We sat and watched the mourners in companionable silence until it was time to leave.

That night, I couldn't sleep. There was nothing uncommon about this, but I was more restless than usual. I wandered about the house for an hour, and even slipped outside to walk through the garden and among the quiet beehives. Mother found me shortly before dawn, sitting on the terrace, shivering. She took the seat beside me and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.

"I woke up," she said, "and you were gone."

"I couldn't sleep."

"No. Neither could I."

I wasn't cold, but I couldn't stop shaking. Mother slipped out of her chair and kneeled before me, massaging my hands, and when I thought I might go mad, she held me tightly.

I began to relax as the sun rose, but I could feel her tears on my neck, and her eyes were red when she let me go.

We spent a subdued summer sorting through my father's belongings. My mother insisted on keeping a few odd things; the rest we threw away or donated to charity.

We sold the beehives to a neighbour, and the night after they were taken away, I was once again unable to sleep. I made my way downstairs, and was only slightly surprised to find my mother sitting at the kitchen table. She had cut most of her hair off; in the kitchen light she looked like a painting of Joan of Arc.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm hungry."

"So am I."

She made us thick sandwiches, the kind that were somehow inextricably entwined with my childhood, and said, "How do you feel about moving to Oxford at the end of August?"

She hadn't been to Oxford since Father became ill two years ago.

"Are you going to sell this house, then?"

"No. Certainly not."

"Then I wouldn't mind moving."

Before, when I was much younger, she used to spend a few days of every week there; occasionally, I was permitted to accompany her. I liked Oxford, where the undergraduates sometimes let me listen to their discussions, and even the dons occasionally deigned to acknowledge my existence.

She smiled properly, for the first time since the funeral. "In some ways, yes."

We made plans until the early hours of the morning, and I went to bed with a lighter heart than before.

The next day, we visited my father's grave. It was an excursion that we made every fortnight or so, a kind of melancholy picnic.

Sometimes – often enough that it no longer shocked me – we would find strangers there, paying respects or merely gawking. So I wasn't surprised to find a man already there, standing before the headstone and smoking a cigarette.

We normally hung back and waited for the visitors to leave, but this time, my mother stiffened. She said something I didn't catch, drew herself up to her full height and marched forward. I trailed along in her wake.

The stranger heard her approach and turned. I saw that he was some years older than her – it was impossible to say how many; he could have been as young as thirty-five or as old as fifty – thin to the point of emaciation, dark-haired with a beak of a nose and the remnants of great beauty in his face. He watched us approach with an unreadable smile.

Mother stopped a few feet away from him and said, "Adrian."

"Surprise," this man said with a smile. He took a few quick steps forward, and would have kissed her on the lips had she not stepped back. "I'm hurt, Mary. Not a letter, not a note, not even a quick telegram to tell me he was gone." He spoke quickly, though clearly; his accent was undefinable, some mixture of British public school and New England, overlaid by hints of Europe and places unknown.

"I honestly never thought I'd see you again," my mother said. She sounded as though she wished she weren't seeing him now.

"I'd fully intended to stay away. I suppose I surprise even myself, sometimes."

"Your mother was heartbroken."

"She always enjoyed a bit of melodrama."

"All those years, and not a word."

"I came back to her eventually. I spent a year with her, before she died." His voice was light. "Did she not tell you? I suppose she knew you wouldn't care."

With acid in her voice, my mother said, "Did you inherit?"

He laughed. "Dear Mary, what a cynic you are. Yes, I inherited. I am wholly independent, I'm even considered respectable here and there."

He circled her as he spoke, meeting my eyes for the first time. Although I was quite certain he'd already registered my presence. "Aren't you going to introduce me to my brother?"

My mother smiled, suddenly all sweetness. I was torn between a desire to gape at this apparent and unexpected relative, and the urge to flee.

"Jonathan," she said, "this is Adrian Norton. Other than the two of you having the same father, he's not really worth knowing."

Adrian Norton laughed, a bitter note in his amusement. I was studying him, trying not to appear obvious about it. At that time, I had a vague grasp of the general facts of life; my understanding of the emotional aspects was rather more limited. I had read Uncle John's stories; it was clear enough who his mother was. But putting the pieces together was beyond my ability.

"You don't look surprised," Adrian said to me.

"I suppose you look like him."

If he noticed that I hadn't answered his question, he said nothing, but I was pleased that my shock wasn't evident.

"Your mother once told me the same thing." He was watching her as he said this, waiting for a reaction. He didn't get one, but he laughed as if he had and dismissed me from his attention. "I've missed you, Mary."

"You barely know me."

"I've spared a few fond thoughts for you over the years."

She snorted. "I'm sure."

"I wasn't surprised to hear you'd married. It was quite inevitable." He sounded bitter.

"Adrian." My mother took a step forward. She was almost exactly his height. "Believe it or not, I'm glad you're alive. But will _not _discuss—" she glanced at me, and finished, "in front of your father's grave."

What she meant was, _Not in front of my son_.

"Of course," he said. "Very insensitive of me. I'm sorry."

She accepted this with a regal nod, and turned away. I followed, but I looked back, and met my brother's eyes.

He winked at me.

That evening, after dinner, my mother and I walked across the downs. It was full summer, and traces of light remained on the western horizon.

I said, "Tell me about my brother."

She was silent for so long that I thought she wouldn't answer. Eventually she said, "There's little enough to tell. He's six years older than me. Raised largely in Europe and America. Expelled from various schools. His parents loved him. He was the perfect son, until the War."

"Was it shell shock?"

Words I had heard whispered among boys with younger fathers than I.

Mother shrugged. "He was injured in '17. Not terribly – he was sent back to the Front – but he was different after that. Or so I was told. I didn't meet him – I didn't even know of his existence until I was nineteen. He was already addicted to morphine by that stage – he'd begun using it in hospital – he was beginning to experiment with other things."

"What happened?"

What I meant was, why had no one ever told me of his existence?

Aside from what he represented, of course, a lapse on on the part of my Victorian father, and a reminder of a time that perhaps he didn't want to remember. I didn't have the words to express this feeling at the time, but it had a crystal clarity in my mind.

"His father – Godfrey Norton, I should say – tried to help him, but he was determined to lose himself. They were living in Paris at the time. Mr Norton was ill – he never recovered from the influenza the year before – and Adrian had no respect for him. Nor love. He'd met your father two years earlier, you see, and he knew his parents had lied to him.

"Chance brought Holmes and I into the family circle for a time. Unwittingly, I think that was the final blow. Mr Norton died. There were ... other events. Adrian vanished. Holmes escorted Irene back to America. I returned to England alone. And Adrian was completely lost to us."

"Didn't anyone try to find him?"

"I did."

"Didn't Father--"

"He never discussed it with me."

It was clear from her tone that no further questions would be permitted. I would have to content myself with the little information she had chosen to share. I was burning with curiosity about the rest of the story, but it would be no use asking.

"What do you intend to work on in Oxford?" I asked, and we discussed her work until we returned to the cottage.

I waited for my chance to catch her off-guard and continue with my questions about my brother, but the opportunity didn't arise again that summer, and in the end, I put him out of my mind.

_To be continued_... Hopefully not long into the New Year. I detest editing, but I desperately want to have this finished and posted before the end of February. The rest of the story is set in July 1939, which is, as you may imagine, not the most comfortable of years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: The Shadow Kills the Growth  
**Author**: LizBee  
**Summary**: Six years after Holmes's death, his son receives a visit from an unexpected relative.  
**Rated**: PG-13  
**Warnings**: Ooh, character death, please! O-for-Offspring, legitimate and otherwise. Also allusions to prostitution, drugs, Modernism, the usual black arts of the Jazz Age.  
**Fandom**: Mary Russell  
**Spoilers**: Eh, say all of 'em.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine. No profit. Now read on.  
**Notes**: See prologue for main comments. The character of Lionel is borrowed from Branyn's unfinsished Russell/Wimsey opus, because he deserved the attention.  
**Email**: elizabeth underscore barr at yahoo dot com dot au

_**Chapter One**_

"The younger brother hath the more wit."  
_John Ray_

_1939_

It was five years before I met my brother again. He found us in Oxford this time, on a warm summer's day when I was fourteen. I was alone – the housekeeper was out enjoying her afternoon off – and as I invited him inside, it occurred to me that this was surely an opportunity that would never come again.

"Where's your mother?" he asked, looking over the small pile of letters that awaited her on a small table in the front hall.

"I believe she's in Europe." Among the letters was a crumpled telegram, informing me that she might be delayed, and would be back no later than a fortnight, or possibly a month. I didn't think she'd sent it herself.

Adrian looked amused. "Leaving you all alone?"

"I can take care of myself."

"I don't doubt it."

We sat in the sunny garden, and I watched my brother made small talk. It appeared to be something he was exceptionally good at: he inquired about my education, shared his own experiences in a British public school, and generally made himself charming without revealing anything substantial about his current life. His suit was well-cut and well-worn; his shoes were Italian, and there was something indefinably American in his manner.

He noticed my scrutiny and said, "I suppose no one's really explained my place in the family."

"Mother said you were an artist, a soldier and a drug addict. Also a gambler, a drinker and a womaniser. Other than that, no, she wasn't very forthcoming."

These slim and tantalising facts had been drawn out of her slowly over six years. I always had to choose my moments carefully when it came to discussing Adrian, for a reminder of his existence could sour her mood, leaving her both disapproving and regretful. Every fact I'd managed to glean from her scanty information had been carefully examined and committed to memory, for that day when it would be valuable.

Apparently, that day had come.

"Well," said Adrian with a fleeting smile, "I'm glad to see that time hasn't dulled her tongue." He leaned back. "She's right, of course, that's the worst part. Although it's been some years since I had reason to call myself an artist, I'm certainly no soldier, and it's been some years since I used drugs." His hands moved restlessly, tapping arrhythmically on the table with no apparent impetus from his mind. "However, I still gamble, drink, and enjoy the company of women. Do you want to go to Europe?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I have some business to attend to in Paris. A few loose ends that need tying, debts to repay, and so forth. It shouldn't take more than a week. Ten days at the outside."

"And you want to take me."

Not a bad prospect. Truth be told, I'd been rather pleased to finish school and find that not only was my mother abroad, but that she'd failed, for once, to make arrangements for my supervision in her absence. Gabe Hughenfort had joined up with the RAF six months earlier; my godfather was out of the country on business of his own, and while I could have imposed on any number of school-friends, the opportunity to spend some time alone was appealing.

This feeling had lasted a week, until that telegram arrived, and I finally acknowledged the thought I'd been trying to ignore: that leaving me entirely alone – but for our housekeeper, who regarded me with neither affection nor interest – was so unlike my careful mother that something was surely wrong.

Since that realisation, yesterday, the house had seemed somehow empty and sinister. And worse, I had come to know Oxford too well, and everything about it was familiar and dull. A trip to France with my wayward brother would be a considerable improvement over cricket and gas mask drills.

The spectre of my mother's disapproval rose before me, to be summarily dismissed. With luck, and judicious lying, she might never know. And in any case, suggested a small and nasty part of my mind, it served her right for going away without leaving so much as a letter.

"When do we leave?"

Adrian's smile made him look ten years younger. "As soon as you like," he promised.

We departed the next day. I left a behind a carefully forged invitation from a school-friend for the housekeeper. I also sent a letter to my mother's legal people, mentioning that I was accompanying a school-friend – carefully unnamed – to Paris. They would hold the letter until her return.

My conscience was, if not silenced, at least dulled.

London was bustling with activity, piles of sandbags everywhere, and preparations for evacuations holding up traffic. Young soldiers were showing off their new uniforms to adoring girls, looking like they'd just stepped out of the recruitment posters that seemed to be everywhere.

Adrian moved through the crowds with a dark, unreadable expression, and despite my height, I had to hurry to keep up with him.

Aeroplanes left for Paris every two hours. As we took our seats among the shoppers and businessmen, my brother said suddenly, "Where is your mother, precisely?"

"I'm not sure, actually," I admitted. "Probably Berlin."

She had been journeying intermittently to Europe for some years now. She never spoke of it, and I never asked.

"I should have known. Nice girl, your mother, but she'll put her hand in a wasp's nest just to see what happens."

It had occurred to me that Adrian was a likely source of all kinds of interesting information about my parents before their marriage, but I wasn't completely certain that I wanted to know the answers.

We arrived in Paris in the late afternoon, and to my surprise, we were met at the station by a classic English gentleman's gentleman, some decades older than my brother, but straight of spine and firm of hand. His impassive mask slipped for a moment when he saw me, and I thought he looked surprised, but he nodded when Adrian introduced me and said, "I believe I had the pleasure of meeting your parents once."

As we drove through a city devoid of sandbags and patriotic posters, Adrian said, "Has it been quiet?"

"Extremely uneventful, sir."

"Good."

Adrian leaned back, lit a cigarette and smiled to himself.

It was late afternoon when we arrived at a worn house in a formerly grand neighbourhood. It had the look of a place that was rarely occupied and infrequently dusted, but it had obviously been opened up in recent weeks. Adrian ascended the stairs with all the enthusiasm of one of my schoolmates, collecting a pile of mail on his way.

"Third bedroom on the right, that one's yours. Hope it's comfortable…" He trailed off as he sorted through his mail. "Back in a moment," he said, turning away. "Must have a look at something…"

I caught a glimpse of cheap paper and an uneducated hand before he thought to conceal the envelope. He gave me a quelling look and said, not without amusement, "Give a chap some privacy, old man. Your mother used to get that look. Excessive curiosity is not an appealing trait, you know."

He left me alone, and when we met again for dinner, he was charming and amusing, and didn't mention the letter.

As I climbed into an unfamiliar bed in a new city, I noted with satisfaction that the trip was already becoming interesting.

The next morning, we set off for the Latin Quarter. Adrian continued to be charming as he steered me towards our destination: the Seine's Left Bank, and the bookstalls that lined the river. Judging by the shadows under his eyes, he'd had a restless night, but he seemed cheerful enough as we walked.

"Not much of a bibliophile myself," he said, "but I'm not a complete Philistine. And I happen to be acquainted with a number of _bouquinistes_, misanthropic as they are. We are paying a visit to a very old friend, Jonathan."

"You may as well call me Jack," I said. "Everyone else does."

"Jack Holmes. Good, solid English name." He sounded approving. "I had a sergeant named Johnny Holmes in the War. Solid farm lad from Kent. Nerves broke after a month. Shot himself in the hand. Executed. I need a cigarette. Or a drink." He removed a pewter cigarette case from the inner pocket of his coat, and I saw that his hands were shaking. "Come on, kid." He affected an American drawl. "I'll introduce you to my old friend Germaine."

Germaine was not a day less than sixty. From her stall she sold dirty postcards and the kind of books that British customs officers liked to confiscate. She greeted Adrian with a tirade of French, spoken so rapidly and using so much slang that even I had trouble following her at first. He was a cruel boy, a thoughtless, horrible boy for leaving without a word and leaving such chaos behind, and what sleepless nights she had suffered, not knowing if he was dead or alive. He listened and laughed, and allowed her to kiss his cheeks as she abused him.

When she had finished, she turned on me. "And this," she said, "is this your son?" She peered at me. "Your _fille Anglaise_, she—"

"Alas, no." Adrian's voice was light and humorous. "This is my brother. Jack."

She looked disbelieving, but she shook my hand and said, "Monsieur Jacques Norton, then. I hope you have better manners than your brother. He left my house in such a state nearly twenty years ago. Bodies and blood everywhere, and not a trace of Adrian. His mother was was out of her mind with grief."

"I doubt that very much," Adrian interrupted. "My mother had too much common sense. Very careless to lose one's wits over the slightest little disaster."

"Out of her mind with grief." Germaine heaved a stack of books with extra emphasis. I picked one up, a volume in an anthology of Italian poetry, and flipped through it, admiring the pristine pages and thinking it was strange to find such a good collection amidst the trash. My godfather collected rare manuscripts; I'd spent enough hours examining his shelves and listening as he studied auction catalogues to have an idea of quality. A volume in the series was missing, which I thought was a shame: the collection was drastically devalued as a result.

"And now," Germaine said, ripping the book out of my hand with rather more force than necessary, "are you here to apologise for your past misbehaviours, or simply to beg a favour."

"Oh, the first. Well, both. My misspent youth becomes increasingly less amusing in retrospect as I get older. And I _was_ wondering," Adrian dropped his voice. "Lombardi. The Corsican. I'm told you could put me in touch with him."

Germaine sighed. "Oh, Adrian. You never change."

"Germaine—"

"Are you going to take your little brother with you? Lombardi would take your money, slit your throat and then make his mother pay a ransom. You'd be better off leaving France again."

"Be reasonable, Germaine. Either I can go to him, or I can wait for him to come to me. His people tracked me down in New York last month, which is an experience I'd rather not repeat. Leads me to think there's more than money at stake here. I'll take him off guard. See how he likes his own medicine."

She scowled. "This is stupid, Adrian, and who will pay for the damage this time? Your mother? _His_ mother?" She nodded at me.

"Lord, I hope not. Germaine, just tell me where I can find the Corsican. I'll see that no one hears of your part in it."

Silence. Then she said, "All right. There is a Russian restaurant in Montparnasse, they call it Le Cosaque. Borscht and black bread, and vodka. Lombardi owns the building. He keeps private rooms upstairs."

"Gambling?"

"Among other things. It's a new enterprise; he spends a lot of time there."

"You're a treasure, Germaine."

"I'm a convenient gossip, and you are a nasty little boy."

But I sensed her worried eyes on us as we walked away, and when I looked back, she was deep in urgent conversation with a fat young man with small, cold eyes.

Adrian said, "When she said 'house' she meant 'house of tolerance'. She used to own two of the most profitable and reliable brothels in Paris. Legal here, but she used them as a front for various other things. Then she retired, passed control of the businesses to her granddaughter, and now she is a bookseller."

"And what happened twenty years ago?"

"End of the world. For me, anyway. For a lot of people, really."

"Sounds like you made quite an impression on her."

He laughed. "Nothing, nothing at all compared to the one your mother made."

I found that I was not at all tempted to ask for a clarification. Instead, I looked behind us, but there was no sign of the fat man following.

We adjourned for lunch in a rather shabby café, where Adrian drank two glasses of wine and lapsed into a pensive silence. Over a plate of pastries he shifted and said, "So how much, precisely, has your mother taught you about the family business?"

"Some," I said cautiously. We spent our summers in Sussex, where she replicated old chemical experiments and imparted bits of arcane and useful wisdom that she in turn had received from my father. But our lessons were aimless, and we never discussed the possibility that I might follow in my father's footsteps, if that was even possible in this unromantic era.

Some impulse led me to add, "Father taught me a lot before he died. I didn't understand most of it then, but I remember it all."

"Did he, now." Adrian's voice was light. "That's rather touching, actually."

"Who is the Corsican? Do you owe him money?"

"Er, yes. Quite a bit, actually. And he's put rather more effort into tracking me down than I'm normally accustomed to, you see, and that kind of attention makes me rather uncomfortable. It's not a situation I'd care to walk into alone, you understand. And there are very few people I'd trust with my life."

"One of them being my mother."

I must have sounded sceptical, because he laughed and said, "Especially your mother. Has integrity, you know, not to mention steady hands and good aim. Don't know what possessed her to go to Germany. Stupid, really. She'll get herself killed, and then where will you be?"

I turned my mind away from that grim possibility and said, "So. You came to Oxford looking for Mother's help, and you got me instead."

He looked away, but didn't deny it. Instead he said, "I need your eyes, Jack, and your quick mind. And whatever useful skills your parents have managed to pass on." He lit a cigarette. "Were you with him much, towards the end?"

"All the time."

"Huh. My mother would have sent me away. Of course, she was very protective, in her way. I doubt Mary ever made that mistake. I need another drink."

I considered, not for the first time, my mother's particular parenting style. The other fellows at school had tiresome mothers who plagued them with endless instructions and concerns; my schoolmates regarded the species in general as a group to be respected and endured.

My mother, on the other hand, could ignore me for weeks as she buried herself in some arcane research, and took herself off to Europe without explanations. Her expectations were high; her disappointment unbearable. She was acerbic and uncompromising, and sometimes seemed to regard motherhood as a particularly complex form of academic project, only slightly more significant than whatever book she was writing at the time. Even my teachers were slightly afraid of her.

That was her public face. In private, or among friends, she could be wry, charming, even elegant when she exchanged tweed for silk. She loved me fiercely, despite her restraint, and I her.

So why, I wondered as we returned to my brother's house, was I here?

For amusement, for adventure, for change? Rebellion against my mother's regime, however benevolent? Dissatisfaction with the restrictions she had placed against my personal forays into any kind of detection? All of that and more: Adrian was family; he was my father's blood. And my father was a memory, growing dimmer by the day.

I shivered, and my brother gave me a sympathetic look.

"You can change your mind," he said. "I won't hold it against you. If I were your age, I wouldn't have even left England."

"Don't be stupid," I snapped. "I'm not going to let you down."

_Unlike everyone else_, my mind whispered, but the traitorous thought was banished immediately.

For the next three days, my brother instructed me in the art of gambling, and more, the art of successfully cheating, and the signs that gave away another player. Beyond this, he demonstrated certain classic confidence tricks. My parents had taught me sleight of hand; this was even better: a sleight of mind.

"The trick," he told me, "is to find people who want something for nothing, or so little as makes no difference. Or," he hesitated, "who are vulnerable in some other way. Saw a lot of it when I was young – people in my mother's position attracted a lot of leeches. Father didn't have much time for them."

We spent our mornings locked away in his house, with all its faded beauty. In the afternoons, Adrian took me through Paris, pointing out certain danger spots and hiding places.

Our evenings were spent in certain cafés and clubs, amidst artists and socialists and charming petty criminals. I was tall for my age, and in a good suit and bad light, I looked older than my years. I kept quiet and listened, and learnt a great deal. Once, I thought I'd spotted an old friend of my mother's, but she didn't give me a second glance, and in any case, it hardly seemed like her kind of place.

Adrian usually slept late into the morning, although he was often restless during the night. I, on the other hand, was a natural early riser, and much given to sleepless nights. I usually read, but one morning, in the very early hours, I put book aside and set about exploring his house. It was shabby and slightly impersonal; I had the impression that much of the furniture had been removed and never replaced. At one stage, the house had billeted soldiers; there were traces of marks left by heavy boots, unaccustomed to fine carpets.

One room particularly interested me, an upstairs parlour with uncomfortable-looking Victorian furniture and paint splashed on the carpet. Adrian had indicated that I was to consider this his own personal domain, and therefore off-limits. With only a slight twinge of conscience, I leapt at the opportunity to explore it.

It was a worn and ugly room, and rather pathetic. A ragged pile of sketchbooks sat in one corner, covered in a thick layer of dust, and an easel and canvas were concealed beneath a cloth.

Having come this far, I found myself strangely reluctant to invade further. I left the room untouched, and closed the door behind me, and wondered at a comment my mother had once made, that Adrian never had the nerve to cope with his own talent.

I spent the next day regretting my lost nerve.

The very next night, I waited until Adrian had finally settled, and slipped out of bed, marched in, switched on the light and went straight to the mass of sketchbooks. They were hardbound, expensive, the kind used by serious artists and poseurs with money.

They were largely empty, but for some shaky scratches and half-finished sketches. It was impossible to tell whether Adrian was a Modernist, or merely careless; even a child's hand had more control.

The last book was the only one that held any cohesive work: endless faces, half-clad androgynous bodies, emerging from thick shadows. It was grim and disturbing, a portrait of a mind in turmoil.

The final pages, on the other hand, were a different matter all together. The new phase opened with a careful sketch of a woman whom I would have known for Irene Adler, even if she hadn't been identified as such; she bore a striking resemblance to Adrian. It was a good portrait, I decided, but lifeless.

The next three pages held sketches of my father. I had the impression they'd been done from memory; they had the same lifeless quality as the picture of Irene Adler.

The very last pages bore sketches of my mother, and these had been done from life. Even if it hadn't been obvious from the sheer life in those lines and shadows, he had captured her in the middle of a conversation, or possibly an argument.

I was tempted to leave the canvas alone, but having come this far, I couldn't turn back. Dust rose in the air as I lifted the heavy cloth, catching in my throat as I examined the half-finished painting in the dim light.

It was my mother. Recognisable despite the blocks of paint that formed her outline; the stance and the obstinate tilt of her chin was entirely familiar. There was enough detail that I could see her face, which was both wary and amused. She was wearing a man's three piece suit, with her hair slicked back. Finished, I thought it would be both unfashionable and slightly disturbing, but also compelling and attractive. But mostly I thought that I had no business seeing my mother like this. I covered the canvas with an obscure sense of relief and slipped out of the room.

If he knew I'd invaded his private rooms, Adrian said nothing, but my nocturnal wanderings did not go unnoticed. I made my way downstairs one night, with a vague plan of finding the kitchen and food, and instead discovered my brother, sitting alone in the dining room.

"Is insomnia a family tradition," he asked, "or merely an heirloom?"

"My old nurse said once that I never actually started sleeping through the night."

I remembered waking one night, and finding my parents gone. I must have been two or three; the world seemed very large back then. Some instinct had prompted me to leave my bed and enter their room, usually forbidden to me. Clothes were thrown haphazardly around the otherwise tidy bedroom, but I saw that their heavy boots and coats were gone, leaving only a lingering trace of tobacco and mothballs hanging in the air. But their trunks remained, and as my nurse found me and hurried me back to my bed, I knew they'd return soon.

Adrian laughed, not seeing my distraction.

"I, on the other hand, was a perfectly civilised child." Until the War, he didn't say. A full glass rested in his shaking hands. He looked away.

"What will you do when we're finished here?" I asked.

"Go back to America, probably. Don't plan to get caught up in another war."

His tone didn't invite comment; I said something meaningless and returned to my room.

The following morning brought a letter, which Adrian read through twice, then discarded with an exasperated sigh. His act didn't quite fool me; there was concern behind his usual mask of amusement, and he slipped the letter into an inner pocket.

Over lunch he said, "We'll be dining with an old friend of mine tonight." I gave him a curious look, but he seemed irritated and disinclined to explain further.

His friend was very old indeed, a thin man who couldn't be a day less than eighty, and was probably considerably older. He lingered just a moment too long as he shook Adrian's hand, and dismissed me from his attention as soon as he could. I didn't mind; it amused me to be invisible, and conversations between adults were generally more interesting when they thought they were unobserved.

Not that the conversation was particularly memorable: they discussed long-closed cabarets and a Berlin night-life that no longer existed. Adrian seemed content to allow Lionel to steer the dialogue, although his lips thinned at Lionel's knowing allusion to a woman's house-parties, and he quickly changed the subject.

They moved into a library, old but not well-tended, for brandy. Impossible, a set of Holmes stories – original _Strand _publications, even – were carelessly piled by the fire. I ensconced myself in a chair with a copy of _The Priory School_, happily ignored by the adults. Adrian finally stirred and leaned forward, his eyes suddenly sharp.

"Tell me, old man," he said agreeably, "your note hinted at all kinds of exciting possibilities, but you never actually told me how you heard I was in Paris."

"Didn't I? It's not the most interesting of stories, I suppose – I simply kept hearing your name so frequently that I knew you had to be in Paris. Not to mention not one, but two women inquiring after you in as many days."

I looked up sharply, but Adrian appeared unmoved.

"Friends from Berlin, I assume, if they came to you," he said.

"One was German. One of those Valkyrie types you used to admire. The other," Lionel hesitated, "I should think her parents were Russian, although she spoke French as if she were born here. Couldn't have been much more than sixteen, if that."

"And she was looking for me." Adrian looked deeply unhappy. "Ah well. Can't be helped. Did you give them my address?"

"No." A fleeting smile touched Lionel's lips. "Knowing you, I assumed they would be wanting payment for some kind of debt, and that business is always tedious."

"Good man."

Adrian's eyes wandered the room, meeting mine. He gave me a look of disbelief when he saw my reading matter.

We left a short time later, and I noticed that Adrian looked about carefully as we left the building and climbed into his car. What he expected to do in case of an attack remained unclear, for he thrust his shaking hands deep into the pockets of his coat, but at least, I thought, he didn't intend to be taken unaware.

I felt, or imagined, hostile eyes watching us from the shadows, but no one bothered us.

_to be continued_


End file.
